


Auribus Teneo Lupum (I Hold The Wolf By The Ears)

by iamanidhwal



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: AU, Abandonment, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Lawyers, Aziraphale is So Done (Good Omens), Aziraphale's Name is Ezra (Good Omens), Background Adam/Warlock, Background Relationships, Background Warlock/Adam, Drama, Drama & Romance, Family Drama, Family Issues, Identity Reveal, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Lawyer Crowley, Lawyers, M/M, Mentions of homophobia, Not Beta Read, Outing, Runaway, Self-Defense, Verbal Abuse, bookshop owner Aziraphale, disown, mentions of abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-10-18 10:02:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20637326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamanidhwal/pseuds/iamanidhwal
Summary: Auribus Teneo Lupum: I hold the wolf by the ears; a situation where holding on and letting go can prove to be dangerous.On one particular evening, A.Z.Fell & Co. becomes a safe refuge for a runaway who blunders in, weak, injured, and unable to talk apart from sharing his own name. The owner, known by everyone in the block as Mr. Ezra Fell, has no second thoughts about housing and caring for this young man. But soon enough, complications arise, his secret being found out and his job and bookshop in danger from the very people he despises and the very people that, he laments, was his real family.In saunters Atty. Anthony J. Crowley, hired by said family to try and threaten the bookshop owner into closing down his business, or risk having a case slapped against him for harboring a fugitive, which could see him behind bars for a maximum of five years.Ezra, as it turns out, was a mild-mannered man who Crowley immediately takes a liking to, and the case abruptly seems too muddled up in gray water for Crowley to be on his client’s side. They both have to race against time and navigate themselves through a complicated maze of legal nature to save the runaway, Ezra, and the bookshop from certain doom.





	1. Corvus Oculum Corvi Non Eruit (A Raven Does Not Pick Out The Eyes of Another Raven)

**Author's Note:**

> Main points from this AU are from @burnthetoaster on Twitter! I just expounded and edited it a little to fit the story better ;)
> 
> Original prompt: "Crowley is a lawyer representing a very powerful mafia (well, the firm does) who are trying to take to court this small niche bookshop in Soho to give up the property. Except that the bookshop owner is very cute and very much his type. So Crowley decides to take Aziraphale as the client instead... Except for the fact that Aziraphale is related to royalty(ish) and they're the ones who actually hired the mafia to take down his bookshop so that he can actually do his responsibilities to the crown and all."
> 
> Will be updating it every few days (please give me some time, I'm moving in between flats with my grad studies!)
> 
> [VERY IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER] I am not a legal student and have never been even though my mom wanted me to become a lawyer lmao. Please take this as a reminder as I have 0 legal experience and like 10% motivation to study this. I will be using legal jargon only for a bit, but not so much.
> 
> So please, please, /please/, do not come at my throat for being incorrect in technical terms

* * *

A.Z. Fell & Co. was far from being the best or most popular bookshop in the block (or in the city), but it held its head high.

Rumors swirl around the mysterious bookshop, which rarely sees itself sell a single book within years. Partly to blame was the erratic shop hours; sometimes it would open in the middle of the day; sometimes it would open way into the afternoon. It never stayed open later than when the sun set that day, and there was no fixed day where it would open. One must simply have all their stars aligned to find the bookshop open long enough for a purchase.

Any rational being might think that this particular business strategy wouldn’t pan out; that, perhaps in the span of a few months, A.Z. Fell & Co. would cease to exist, and the corner lot of the street would be empty yet again. But somehow, even with the mystery of its operation hours, it still held for years and years. Those who frequent the shops in the neighborhood would see the ever-present closed sign on the front door; it was rarer than a blue moon to see it flip to open.

But the owner of said bookshop was no recluse, as one would think and derive from the very nature of the bookshop. In reality, Mr. Ezra Fell was a sunny fellow, with blonde, almost white, hair tufting in curls above his head and a soft demeanor around him. Bright blue eyes paired with a small, no-less-polite smile greeted everyone with mirth when he stepped out of the bookshop, or his apartment situated right on top of it. He’d frequent the shops around the block and the next street over for his essentials, or a quick walk in the nearby park.

Many people have seen him just relax on a bench with a worn, possibly-first-edition book on his lap, or feed the ducks lazily paddling around in the water. Sometimes he’d be away for weeks at a time, seemingly to London, where he’d perhaps purchase even more books for his shop that he’d likely never sell. Several people would see his bookshop and think it antique, even consider the thought that he was showing signs of being a hoarder. Most people, however, just remember the jovial, portly man greeting everyone as he passed them on the street, and thought, _“Well, he’s a little odd, but really, in the world we live in, who isn’t?” _and left him well enough alone.

But rumors never really died down, as there were visits from a long, sleek, black car with a certain man in a sharp suit coming into the shop every now and then. It frequented several times a year, but recently even went so far as visited every few months. And the people noticed that Mr. Fell had been in a bad mood, his usually casual gait more strict and rushed as he barreled out of the shop after the car and the suited man had left, hat pulled down over his eyes. Those were the very few times that anyone would find the smell of tobacco around the man, who smoked only when very stressed.

Some say that A.Z. Fell & Co. was going under, and that the suited man was a contractor who wanted to buy him out of his place. Others postulate that the bookshop was a front for an organization handling illicit, illegal activity, and that Mr. Fell was not who he said he was. But there were no other clues to be gleaned, no suspicious activity ever aroused the need for the neighborhood watch. Rumors stayed as such, and the bookshop and its owner were only ever talked about, whispered in passing.

Until, of course, _that _day.

The setting sun shone in through the window, bathing the inside of the bookshop in a warm, orange glow. Ezra leaned back from the tome that he had perusing on his ancient-looking desk. With a roll of his shoulders and a quick crack of the neck, a sigh escaped his lips. He had been reading all day, keeping an attentive ear to the folk who wandered in his bookshop to check which books they were interested in.

He had to admit he hated the bell chimes every time it rang when someone opened the door, but he knew he had to tamp down his annoyance. He couldn’t really rent this commercial space below him without opening a minimum of forty hours every week, after all. He merely prayed to God that no one was actually interested in his books, and that he’d be left alone, which he usually preferred.

He stood up from his cushioned chair and stretched his arms above his head, before he headed out to the front door. Closing time was always a happy hour for him, and he hummed to himself a little tune as he flipped the sign from ‘Open’ to ‘Closed’, and when he pulled down the blinds on the front windows.

But then he heard it – the sound of scuffling on the carpeted floor. Ezra’s hands stilled on the doorknob as he was in the middle of locking it from the inside. He peered around the bookshop, merely illuminated by the last rays of light of the day and the muted light fixture hanging from the middle of the shop.

“Who’s there?” he called out, voice ringing.

Only silence answered. He frowned to himself, thinking about the possibility of burglars, and dispelling the possibility of anything supernatural. He slowly stepped out of the way, keeping silent so as to hear anything else that might explain the sound that he heard.

After a few minutes, just as Ezra was about to relax and let it go, he heard the same scuffling again, this time near the backroom. He grimaced and went to take a fire poker right beside the fireplace that he only used when the shop was closed. Holding the thin piece of iron high, he crept up to the backroom to apprehend the offending trespasser.

Only, he found himself facing a thin boy with a pale face, shivering in a heap on the floor. His black, shoulder-length hair was plastered to the sides of his freckled face and neck with sweat. And the scuffling noise that he had heard was the boys’ sneakers, old and looking worse for wear, kicking involuntarily against the carpet. 

The poker was dropped immediately, and Ezra held the boy’s head up, thinking he was suffering a seizure. Although soaked with sweat, he could tell that he was suffering from a fever that was dangerously high. “Oh, dear, bless you, are you alright?”

And as if to answer, the boy fell limp against his arms, head lolling to the side.

* * *

It took him a full day of sleep and attentive care from Ezra before the boy opened his eyes.

It was nothing more than a fluttering of eyelashes, but Ezra knew that there was a spark of consciousness within his eyes as soon as he opened them to the light. He had been stripped of his clothes and had been dressed in a spare set of pyjamas Ezra had kept in his closet, but the boy’s frame was thin, sickly so. The bookshop owner winced at his near-emaciated form, with the ribs and hipbones jutting out from pale, thin skin that looked easy to break. And when he washed him down with a soaked cloth to abate the chills that racked his body every so often, he found a lot of marks on his body that would unnerve him – namely scratch marks on his neck and forearms, cuts that looked self-inflicted on the inside of his arms and thighs, as well as bruises of varying shapes and colors in every imaginable part of the body.

It was a miracle that he was alive and only suffering from a fever. When it had broken fourteen hours after Ezra had taken him in, he sent a silent prayer of thanks to God for the miracle.

When the boy woke up, Ezra put down the book that he was reading on the table that he had propped up on his bedside. He took off his small glasses, as well, as they rested on his chest held up by the cord that ran around his neck so he wouldn’t lose them. Hands folded in his lap, he waited patiently for the boy to get a bearing of his surroundings, introduce himself, say thanks, _anything._

The minute the boy was fully awake, he started sobbing.

“Oh, no, dear,” Ezra cooed, leaning forward to smooth the locks of hair that had fallen on his face back into place.

That was, apparently, the _wrong _decision to make, as he yelped as though burned and leaned away from his touch, scrabbling and kicking at the thick weighted blanket that tucked him into bed. He nearly fell from Ezra’s four-posted bed had he not banged his elbow on the side-table and he winced in pain. 

Ezra’s hands shot up in the universal gesture of surrender. “Hey, hey, it’s okay, little one, don’t worry. I’m not a bad guy.”

The boy’s eyes might have been wet with tears, but the suspicion was clear as day. Ezra continued, “Look, I’m not going to touch you again, alright? There’s a glass of water on the bedside table behind you. You may drink it, if you want. I’m fairly sure you’re dehydrated.”

There were a few tense moments wherein the boy tried to judge the situation. He was curling up into himself, Ezra noted, looking more feral and defensive. He very nearly expected the boy to break into a sprint as he kept eyeing the bedroom door that led outside. But thankfully, he didn’t, and merely took the glass of water and drank everything in a single go, throwing his head back as he gulped down the last drops.

“There you are,” he mumbled, taking his hands down but not leaning forward or planning to touch him any further. “Alright. First of all, do you know where you are?”

The boy’s jaw tensed, a knot appearing on the side of his face. He winced a little as he realized that the motion aggravated his split, scabbing lip. He seemed to think it over before shaking his head minutely.

“I figured as much. You’re in A.Z. Fell & Co. Ring any bells?" 

Another shake of the head.

“It’s a bookshop. Mine, in fact. My name is Ezra Fell, I manage and own it. And who might you be?”

The boy looked at him through his eyelashes, and his mouth seemed to move, but with incoherent syllables. He couldn’t make them out.

“I’m sorry, what was that? Can you repeat it for me?”

“…dam. A-Adam.”

The boy’s voice was rough and hoarse, as if he had been screaming for a while. Even he himself winced at the sound of his own voice, low and rumbly and guttural, and he promptly shut up.

“Adam, was it?” Ezra nodded, taking note of it. “Alright, well, you were sick and collapsed in my back room. I think you wandered into my shop during the day and spent the day inside as you tried to focus on being alive.” 

No answer. Ezra sighed weakly, not knowing what else to do but to keep talking, no matter how awkward it was that the boy simply chose to not reply. “How old are you exactly?” 

The boy’s mouth opened and closed, for a few times, no sound coming out. He just held out his two hands, fingers splayed, in the air, for a few moments, then put down one hand.

“Fifteen?”

The boy nodded, now shuffling into a better position. Sitting cross-legged on the bed, he was still hunching over and looking around suspiciously, but it was more with confusion than poised for a fight-or-flight situation just a few minutes before.

Ezra stood up, then took a pen and a sticky note from his bedroom desk table. “Alright, young man, I’m going to have to ask you to give me a number to call. You’re a minor, you can’t be out and about. I won’t be surprised if your face isn’t already in the news by now, your parents might be worried sick.”

In an instant, the crying restarted. The boys eyes stared watering, his shoulders shook with the strength of his wretched sobs, and he suddenly leapt forward, holding onto Ezra’s wrists. “Please!”

“What?”

The boy was shaking his head fervently, long nails digging into his wrists through the material of Ezra’s long-sleeved shirt. “Please, no, no, please, no…”

“I won’t call your parents?”

“Please!”

Ezra pursed his lips, and looked really hard at Adam. The young boy was desperate, and hungry, and sick, and so obviously abused. With his reaction, it was not such a reach to say that the abuse was domestic, at the hands of his own parents. The fear that traveled through Adam’s body, making his frame tremble, the palpable tang of desperation in the air…

It made Ezra angry, angry at the perpetrators. But he was no judge, neither jury, nor executioner; he could not take matters into his own hands, and report to the authorities. He knew how dangerous it was, this runaway business; had he put out an ad with Adam’s features looking for their legal guardians, he would have been turned over to his abusive family. He could have also gone to the authorities, but he didn’t trust them enough to handle his case properly.

And seeing the boy’s injuries made unbidden memories from his own childhood and teenage years come flooding back into his mind. Taunts and jeers from his many cousins as they poked him, and stabbed him, and made fun of him and blamed him for things he hadn’t done.

At once, his hand dropped to his side, pen and sticky note forgotten in it. His body already knew his decision before his mind fully wrapped around it. “Alright.”

Adam’s lower lip wobbled and he curled up on the bed, hugging a pillow and burying his face on it. He looked like all his energy had been drained right out of him, and now he looked utterly exhausted as fresh tears rose to the surface. Ezra just let him, sitting back down on the chair as the boy’s tears soaked his pillow through.

For a full hour, the flat above A.Z. Fell & Co. heard nothing but pained cries and hiccupping sobs. When the din finally started to lessen, and the tears had stopped flowing, Ezra carefully pried the soaked pillow from his arms and leaned him back on the bed. 

A small, understanding smile was on his face. “Let’s get you fed and rested. How does sushi sound?”

* * *

For the next few days, A.Z. Fell & Co. stayed closed, to no surprise for the neighborhood. There were some people who wondered where Mr. Fell could be, as he wasn’t at the weekend market to buy his usual bundle of flowers, or wasn’t there to personally pick up the newspapers that were stacked on his doorstep on Sundays, but it wasn’t really a disturbance in the great balance of the neighborhood. The man was eccentric, and many people excused this behavior away as one of those weird episodes were he exhibited such.

Adam still overslept, and still had many pillows around him, and could only sleep when there was a lamp turned on in the evening in his room, but for the most part he was silent. Apart from saying his name and pleading with Ezra to not report his location to anyone, he stayed quiet, eating the food Ezra had had delivered to his flat and drinking the medicine that he was given. There was healthier pallor that spread through his skin after two days, and there was a twinkle in his eyes the very next day when he awoke.

Ezra still helped him and medicated him when needed, careful hands checking his bruises and cuts. Adam winced when he had to show the white scars that were on his wrists and on the inside of his thighs, but Ezra didn’t seem disturbed or asked about them. There was an eerie worldliness to the way he moved, an efficiency and practicality that didn’t lose its touch of warmth. Ezra knew that there were questions in the boy’s mind, because his face was easily read like an open book, but he didn’t dare ask, and he himself didn’t want to initiate what he expected to be a heavy, loaded conversation, the likes of which would probably make the boy close in on himself yet again. 

One time, when Ezra had wanted to watch the news, Adam vehemently denied him the remote, taking it and clutching it close to his chest. A flare of anger rose to his head at first, but died down quickly when he saw the utter fear in the boy’s eyes. No doubt he was afraid to see his image and likeness being broadcasted throughout the country. Ezra knew that hiding him from authorities, whether he was being searched or not, could be considered kidnapping to the untrained eye, but he let it go, thinking that there must be a way for him to quietly squirrel Adam away to a safer, more secure place for him to recover and get away from his abusers.

Ezra slept on the couch inside the shop, the one by the fireplace, and although he knew it was bad for his back, he never complained. He had slept on worse conditions, on floors littered with the feces of different rodents and bugs. He remembered a time when he had been forced to sleep on the streets, or was forced to curl in on himself to occupy the least space as possible on a dirty, bug-infested mattress with the threat of rainclouds closing in and pouring down on him in the middle of the night.

Yet here he was, with cushions and a blanket and a roof above his head. He sent another quick prayer of gratitude to God every night before he slept, and when he woke up the next day and found that Adam had gone to the little kitchenette to prepare breakfast for the two of them, he could only smile to himself.

The omelette might have had a few broken eggshells into them, and he preferred tea over coffee, but he ate it anyway, noting that Adam’s weak smile grew bigger with every bite he took.


	2. Canis Canem Edit (Dog Eat Dog)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Family visits are a total chore.

* * *

They settled now into a routine.

Adam would be bustling about early in the morning, preparing breakfast for the both of them. Ezra would step out to the shops to buy everything they needed, act as innocent as possible and come back with enough food for the week. Business hours were still straggled, books were checked out yet left on their stands and remained unsold, and the doors and locks of A.Z. Fell & Co. still clicked into place at uncertain hours of the day.

The boy was still recovering, and sometimes he winced when he helped around the shop and pick up a particularly heavy column of leather-bound books, but the bruises on his arms and legs were already fading into a motley yellow, their purple shine disappearing as they healed. His appetite grew as well, and although he didn’t say much about what happened to him and how he got to his shop on that particular day, he took it upon himself to show gratitude the way he could. He’d sweep the floor, clean the windows, vacuum the carpets, all the things that would have taken Ezra a few days of cleaning and a whole lot of backache.

When the shop opened, Adam would be in the backroom, or in the bedroom, reading or sleeping. He was fond of the young adult books, and yelped in excitement when he found an old, battered copy of _Watchmen _squashed up in between two battered books from the Beat Era– Jack Kerouac’s _On The Road, _as well as William Burroughs’ _Junky – _and subsequently, voraciously read it through in the span of a day. Knowing his preferences, Ezra would go and have his usual order of books from London that he’d pick up personally delivered instead, along with several new, shiny boxed book sets and some more volumes of the graphic novel for Adam that he seemed to like.

And so that was how their days went. Ezra wasn’t really concerned about how long Adam was planning on staying, or if he would decide to skip town after his injuries had healed. He only knew that he had to keep the boy out of the public eye until there was something definitive that they could do to ensure his safety.

But that day never came, his plans to mull over Adam’s future disrupted when a shiny, all-too-familiar black limousine pulled up to the shop front. Adam had been sweeping again, and Ezra held his arm gently to get his attention.

The boy looked up, and Ezra tilted his head to the backroom – their little signal to hide when there was someone by the door. He nodded with no fuss and gave him the broom before disappearing. The last of his footsteps sounded against the wooden floor just as the bells of the front door rang when it opened.

“Good morning, dear cousin.”

Ezra couldn’t help but roll his eyes as he faced the man he loathed to see but, as fate would have it, kept encountering every few weeks. Dressed in a sharp, grey suit with purple accessories, Gabriel stood a head over him, and even though he had a wide smile that showed the rows of perfect teeth, it never met his eyes, and he used his height effectively to tower over him.

Any lesser man who hadn’t been confronted by Gabriel before in their entire life would buckle under him. Ezra had been elbowing him into the mud since he was a child, and when his growth spurt came in their teenage years, he knew better and went for the shins.

“Gabriel,” Ezra finally greeted, no mirth in the tight-lipped smile he offered the man across him. “To what do I owe the… _pleasure?_”

“I just wanted to see you, that’s all.” A small, imperceptible shrug of the shoulders and a lopsided smile. Gabriel was a successful businessman, holding numerous real estate properties and developing land projects all across the country. He knew when to turn up the charm if needed.

None of them worked on Ezra, of course, having already seen the mask slip. “Are you here to threaten me once more?”

There was a small huff of laughter. “Oh, please, can’t family visit family with no reason or ulterior motive?”

“Not this family,” Ezra snapped, teeth grinding at the very mention of the word. “You’ve made _that _abundantly clear.”

Gabriel merely gave him a reproachful look, one that Ezra didn't care for. He harrumphed and turned his back against him. “Leave.”

The door swung open, but instead of Gabriel walking out, it was a young woman, with her hair up in a ponytail and wide, round glasses perched on her nose. She was carrying a messenger bag, and wearing a dress that had a pentagram design on it. “Excuse me, I was wondering if you –”

“Shop’s closed,” Gabriel boomed. Ezra turned around as he heard the woman yelp. Gabriel had pushed back the door forcefully, kicking the woman out. As the customer started yelling curse words and flipping him the bird, Gabriel only flipped the shop sign from ‘Open’ to ‘Closed’, then pointed at it with a grin until the woman left.

Ezra glowered at him. “That was very rude.”

The man sniffed, not disturbed in the least. “What’s rude is an interruption to the discussion of a family matter." 

“This is my shop, and when I say it’s open, it’s open,” he huffed. “And there’s nothing _to _discuss, Gabriel. No _family_to speak of, either. Or did you forget that awful thing you did to me eighteen years ago?”

“Has it really been that long?” The taller man mused, as though the memory was all but a wistful dream. 

Ezra looked back to the same past and only saw hurt, anger, and pain. “Leave, Gabriel. And don’t come back. You’re not welcome. Tell all your cousins, too.”

“I’m here to offer an olive branch,” he said, finally taking off his façade of a friendly visit. “Come home.”

Ezra’s body stilled, and he had to stare at Gabriel for a few moments before finding his voice. Had he really just heard what he thought he did? “Excuse me?”

“Come home!” Gabriel smiled, arms outstretched as though inviting for a hug. Ezra stepped back from it, wondering just what the man was playing at. “That’s what we’re offering. As soon as possible, in fact. We can’t _wait_to have you back in the house. The family’s only whole when everyone is under the same roof, am I right?”

There was something suspicious, something so forced in Gabriel’s speech. Ezra knew this from the moment he opened his mouth and told him he could go back to the place he once called home. “What’s the deal?”

“Uh, nothing? Well…” Gabriel shrugged. “Of course, you’d have to close up shop. Sell it. To me, perhaps? It’s a lovely little corner, and a good building too – “

“I’m not selling my shop." 

Gabriel pursed his lips. “Are you really thinking about managing it from the house?”

“I’m not going to manage the shop from _anywhere _because I _won’t. Go. Back,” _he hissed. “Gabriel, why do you keep doing this?” 

Because Gabriel had, in fact, been visiting him for the past few years. It was usually only to gloat on his projects, or give him some news about the family that he had obviously missed, being so far away from home. It usually ever consisted of two visits every year, one of them always being around Christmas just for Gabriel to give him a Hallmark Christmas card featuring a family printed on the front, with no inscription whatsoever inside (_“Here’s a family that would actually _like _to be with you during the holidays.”)._

But lately, over the course of a few months, Gabriel had been visiting more frequently, much to Ezra’s annoyance. He always brought about stress, but the pretense of all his visits were never really brought to light no matter how much needling he did.

Today, however, seemed to be the day. Gabriel’s smile slipped from his face, and the next words that came out of his mouth went out in a whisper. “Grandmother Eve is dying.”

Ezra sucked in a breath, surprise and a pang of nostalgia hitting him all of a sudden. Grandmother Eve was a beloved figurehead in the family, and was the one to establish them more prominently across the country. Strong and intelligent and ruthless, the very mention of her and her family name could send chills down anyone’s spine. “Oh. That’s… terrible news. Old age?”

“Sadly, no. Cancer.” Gabriel sighed weakly, morose. “It’s in the final stages. She… she specifically asked you to come home.”

“Did she, now?”

“I wouldn’t lie about this.” Gabriel frowned at him. “For her, at least. Come home, Aziraphale.”

“_Ezra,_” he corrected, stance hardening again. “My name is _Ezra._”

“I never really understood why you’d change your name, to be honest.” Gabriel looked up to see the shop sign on the front, spelling ‘A.Z. Fell’ in big, white letters painted onto the glass. “’_Ezra Fell’. _Sounds like a pseudonym. And, to be fair, it is. Your name is Aziraphale, not this hogwash ‘_Ezra_’.”

“It is,” Ezra insisted tersely. “Because I changed it.”

“You can’t just change your _name, _it’s your _birthright.”  
_

“And that birthright was taken away from me the day I left home, remember?” He raised an eyebrow. Gabriel shut his mouth about the matter. “Give my regards to Grandmother.”

“Tell it yourself.”

“No.”

“Aziraphale –”

“_That’s not my name._”

“Oh, poo,” Gabriel scoffed, pacing around the round entrance of the bookshop. He gestured around. “Look at this shop! Full of old, musty books that belong in the shredder. Aziraphale, really, do you want to live out the rest of your days in an antique shop? This could all go up in flames, and then where would you be?”

Ezra squinted. “Was that a threat? Are you _threatening_me?”

Gabriel smiled once more, the kind that doesn’t quite reach the eyes. “No. Merely stating a fact.”

“Look, Gabriel,” he said testily, already drawing his full height and stepping forward to get all up in the other man’s personal space. “You leave me and my shop alone, is that clear? You say you want me back, but you barely respect me, you don’t even say my name, you _threaten _to burn my bookshop if I don’t agree with your half-assed apology—"

Strong hands suddenly clamped down on his shoulders, and he was whirled around, the bookshop dissolving into a blur of color. He saw stars as he was forcefully pushed up against the wall, and Gabriel’s nose was against his, teeth grinding into a menacing grimace. 

“Listen here, you little twerp,” he hissed. “You’re not going to mess this up, you hear?”

Ezra was struggling against him all in vain, and Gabriel held him up by the lapels of his suit coat. He could feel his feet lift off the ground inch by inch. “Gabriel, wait--!”

“No, I’m _done _waiting, Aziraphale,” the other man huffed. “It’s your turn to _listen. _You’re going to burn down this shop, you’re going to come with me, into the car, go back to living in the house, and make amends. We _never _want to see the likes of sniveling little rodents like _you _under our roof, but if that’s what’s going to secure that batshit crazy’s inheritance, then –”

“Gabriel…!” Ezra was choking, and his vision was darkening at the edges. He tried clawing against Gabriel’s hand, only giving a strangled yelp when Gabriel smacked him across the face for struggling.

Suddenly, he was falling sideways, and Ezra took a big gulp of air. He collided against the carpeted ground, and it took him a few seconds for his vision to adjust before he could see what happened.

It was Adam, tackling Gabriel to the ground with a scream. The older man yelped and fended him off just in time, and the teenager rolled away, crouching down low in front of Ezra and effectively shielding him. 

“Who is that?!” Gabriel yelled, scrabbling to stand up. His suit wasn’t in its usual place, and one button on his suit jacket was broken, the frayed golden knot a stark contrast. 

Adam only snarled. “Get your hands off him!” 

“You little piece of –“

“_ENOUGH!” _Ezra yelled, finally getting hold of the iron poker that he had around the shop, just in case. He held it up and pointed the other, malicious end to Gabriel. “Get out, Gabriel. And don’t even think of coming around these parts again.”

Gabriel, looking positively like a cockatoo with ruffled feathers, harrumphed and pushed the door open forcefully. He stomped out of the shop, into the street, but not without hurling words over his shoulder. “You’re going to regret this, Aziraphale! You’ll hear from me about this, you and your feral ward!”

He made quick work of getting into the limousine. Adam made sure to flip a bird at the car using both hands before it pulled away. The smugness in his face wore off when he turned and saw Ezra slumped against the chair. “Mr. Fell?”

“I’m fine, dear,” he said weakly, offering a smile. It didn’t seem to work to reassure the teenager, however.

“Are you alright?”

“Yes, yes, quite… Just need a bit of air,” he mumbled. He smoothed his suit back, and took a handkerchief from a back pocket. “Thank you. For your help.”

Adam shrugged off the thanks. “Who was that asshole?” 

“_Language,_” he scolded lightly, without the bite of a parent.

The teenager rolled his eyes. “Fine. Who was that prick?”

Ezra sighed and rubbed his temples with his fingers. “Someone who just spells trouble in my life.”

“Sounds like you knew him.”

A sad laugh escaped Ezra’s lips. “Yes, you can say that. Once, a very long time ago.” He looked up at the teenager, still looking around, wringing his hands. He knew Adam liked doing something with his hands, as if they distracted him from his thoughts. “Adam, dear, would you please ready some tea? I’ll just step out for a breather.”

Adam bustled back to the kitchen to get the kettle to boil, and Ezra stepped out to the side-alley beside his shop. He took a small tin container from a secret pocket, as well as a vintage lighter. Making quick work, he put a thin cigarette stick between his lips, lit the end, and took a long drag, before letting the smoke curl from his nose and dissipate into the air.

Ezra closed his eyes, already feeling the nicotine work its magic into his system. He tried to process everything – Gabriel, Grandmother Eve, the inheritance he mentioned. It was all so stressful and confusing, and he didn't realize he already accumulated ash against his feet, the cigarette nearly burning his fingers.

He squashed the lit end against the concrete wall, stomping on it for good measure. He debated on smoking another one, then relented quite easily, but when he put the cigarette to his lips, he found his hands were unsteady and shaking.

“Lord, give me strength,” he whispered as he lit his second cigarette of the day, taking another long drag.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *I just adore works from the Beat Era 😭🥺 I've had Kerouac's "on the road" quote as my yearbook quote, and I squealed when I saw the only copy of Burroughs' Junky in my local bookstore. The rest (Naked Lunch, Howl and Other Poems, And The Hippos Were Boiled In Their Tanks) I was gifted 💗
> 
> *Watchmen. Phew. What a great graphic novel. 10/10 would recommend.


	3. De Omnibus Dubitandum (Doubt Everything)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley enters the scene, but the pretense is not an innocent one.

* * *

Days passed by without any more interruptions or disturbances in the shop. Tensions still ran high, and Ezra found himself looking up more often whenever he heard the door chimes of the shop ring. Every time he would imagine one of his many cousins would turn up, unannounced, or a property developer with a contract that he was going to be forced to sign. And at night he’d even lose sleep, every little squeak and noise from both inside and outside the shop waking him up, for fear of someone lighting a fire and burning down the one place he had considered home for a long, long while.

This bled to Adam in particular, who was quite jumpy and went on the defensive anytime he would hear raised voices, whether by excitement or not. He had taken a liking to a particular knife from the set in the kitchen (he knew this, as when Ezra was making them French onion soup, the knife in particular was missing from the place he had left it last). Ezra didn’t know where he was hiding it in the flat, or if it was even on his person the whole day, but he knew the boy only meant good things, so he let him keep it without another question. 

He _had _noticed something different, though; there was a newcomer in town. In his parts of the city, it was very easy to see or check who was an outsider, because they just didn’t fit in with the local life. Ezra was odd with his appearance and his clothing choices, but immediately settled in to the quiet, subdued nature of the whole street.

So when a shiny black Bentley blasting Queen songs would drive down the street, everyone would, naturally, turn their heads to look.

“There he is again,” Adam commented, craning his head over the broom that he held to see the figure driving inside the car.

Ezra pursed his lips, annoyed at the tune that was blasting through the open windows (it was the chorus to ‘_Another One Bites the Dust’, _and Adam was tapping his fingers to the rhythm on the broom handle unconsciously). “Well, let’s hope he leaves, and soon. He’s awfully noisy, and people who make too much noise I find dreadful by nature.”

Adam hummed thoughtfully at that. They heard a car door slam shut, and the teenager blinked. “Oh, Mr. Fell, I think you jinxed it.”

“Come again?”

“He just parked.”

“Ah.”

Adam grimaced and hurried off to the back room, leaning the broom handle against the wall. “He’s coming.”

Ezra started, looking up. “What? _Here?”_

Adam squeaked in affirmation as he bolted against the back room. Ezra himself only had a few seconds to spare before the front door chimes rang, and an accented voice called out. “Hello?”

He turned around to see a tall, thin man at the front door, looking around curiously. He had on what seemed to be a grey shirt under a suit jacket much too small for him, as well as the _tightest _leather pants he had ever seen someone wear ever since he attended a rave in Berlin many years ago. The man had an angular face, a strong jaw, sunglasses on his well-arched nose, and red hair cropped and styled up like a rock star.

Ezra’s heart stopped a bit, because of two reasons: one, because the man was obviously attractive; and two, because the man looked strikingly similar to someone from his distant past. 

“Hello?” the stranger called again, and Ezra forced himself to stand up.

Clearing his throat, he stepped into view. “Yes? How may I help you?”

“Oh!” The man smiled charmingly. “Are you the owner of this fine establishment?”

Odd choice of wording, Ezra noted, and some suspicion must have flashed through his face, but he tamped his feelings down all the same. If anything else, he valued politeness and basic human decency. “I’m sorry, what is it you are looking for here?”

“Oh, no, sorry,” the man apologized, looking around still. Ezra noticed his posture, his demeanor, the subtle little pout on his lips as he considered everything else about the room apart from the very person he was directly talking to. “I just need a bit of help looking for a book.”

There was a twinge of annoyance but he smiled through it. “Of course. What kind?” He was walking backwards through the many bookshelves he catalogued and categorized, and which he knew all by memory. “Non-fiction, perhaps?”

“Oh, I like fiction. Crazy imaginative, me,” the man replied, sauntering after him. Ezra had to turn around because the swing of his hips was maddeningly _distracting, _to say the very least. The flashy designer belt looping around it with a snake head for the buckle only fuelled the flame, and he knew, if he glanced down, that his boots would be of a designer label, as well. 

"Hmm, perhaps Gaiman?"

"No, no." The stranger shook his head. "Love him, love his works, but I'm too busy nowadays. Can't process a book with so much world-building. But perhaps something a bit daring, a bit scandalous? Something involving a crime?”

“I would have recommended Patterson,” the white-haired man mused, waving vaguely on the shelves that were more front-facing to the general public. The flashy, gaudy titles seemed to wink at them, shining from the light overhead.

The customer shrugged. “Patterson writes chapters too short and series too long.”

“I’ll have to agree. I want my books to be paced normally and to breathe in between. Hmm, what about Sheldon?” 

“Classic, a master, especially with thrillers. I usually find myself itching to get back to reading it when I put it down and finishing as fast as possible. But no, sadly I think I’ve read all of his works. Well,” he grimaced, tilting his head this way and that. “Except for the ones published posthumously.”

“True, no doubt. Hmm, what about…?” Ezra looked around, finding a familiar green book. He held up the battered copy, with faded yellow letters spelling out _‘The Firm’ _on top_._The cover even had a picture of a man in a suit being held up with strings by a disembodied puppeteering hand.“May I tempt you into some Grisham?”

The man grinned and took it from him, seemingly satisfied with the suggestion. “_Yesss, _this will do nicely.”

Ezra smiled, ever happy to help. “You know, John Grisham was –”

“A lawyer, yes,” he nodded, smiling back at him. He was finally looking at his eyes – well, supposedly, that’s what Ezra would have thought if it weren’t for those damned sunglasses he never took off even when they were well enough inside the shop. “I am, as well.”

“Ah, so you’re a lawyer?”

“Oh, yes.” The customer held out his hand for Ezra to shake, a sweet smile on his lips. “Attorney Anthony J. Crowley, from Hildebrand, Ewing, & Lancaster. And you are…?" 

“Ezra. Ezra Fell,” he replied, shaking his outstretched hand. It was warm to the touch, like he had put it over the fireplace, and he was pleasantly surprised when Crowley squeezed gently before drawing away.  
  
“Pleasure,” the man nearly purred, and Ezra had to duck his head and process the payment to hide the very obvious blush creeping along his cheeks and neck.

While he accepted payment and wrapped it in brown paper, he made sure to keep the conversation going. “So, are you here for work, or a vacation, perhaps…?”

“Bit of both, actually,” he said, leaning forward with his elbows on the register and smiling up at him. “I would say ‘duty calls’, but all they ever left me was a vague voicemail. So I just came here and went sightseeing by myself in the meantime.”

“And how have you enjoyed it?”

“So far, I like the view.” He said it so simply, with a knowing curl at the tips of his smile. To wink after saying such a statement was overkill, but Ezra got the message all the same.

Crowley leaned back when the purchase was done, and exited with a sashay. But he made sure that he threw him a smile over his shoulder. “I’ll make sure to visit you again, angel.” And with that, the red-haired man left.

Ezra was still too stunned at what had happened to even realize that Adam had gone out from hiding. It was only when he spoke that reality sunk in.

“He called you ‘angel’.” 

“Apparently so.”

“I think he was flirting with you.”

“Do you have a problem with that?”

“Not really; only if you’re terrible at flirting back. Which you are, by the way.”

Ezra sent him a withering look, and Adam retreated to the kitchen in the pretense of preparing afternoon tea, mumbling something about old men and outdated dating practices under his breath. 

* * *

No one, however, seemed to notice that Crowley’s Bentley was still parked on the side of the road, only a few paces from the front of A.Z. Fell & Co.

It was still idling on the curb, and its driver was leaning forward, arms through the steering wheel and fingers clasped together on the dashboard. Anthony J. Crowley was not a religious man, nor was he a pious one. He was the type to be skeptical about the word of the Lord, and this was one of those particular days wherein he questioned the universe’s motives as to why he was led to this particular city, to this particular bookshop in the first place.

“What the _fuck _have I gotten myself into,” he mumbled in dismay, to the car and to the world and to himself and to no one in particular.

He had gotten an assignment from the higher-ups in his firm that required him to go rural, and do _recon. _He protested – and loudly, of course – because he wasn’t a spy, he wasn’t a beat cop, he wasn’t a detective. He was a lawyer, and with a staggering amount of victories on his profile at that. He thought back to his last case in particular, where he defended a young teenager who had been a victim of cyberbullying by his peers. Crowley had a soft spot for children, and would offer to work _pro bono _if the need arises.

And it wasn’t just this presence that made Crowley a popular (or, in the case of the firm, _infamous) _was that he turned down cases all the time. No matter if he was hired to defend someone; if the defense of the one hiring him was built on lies, he tossed the request into the trash. He admitted that there was no such thing as clear-cut black-and-white in the reality, but he liked to think that his work was more appreciated and fulfilling when he would win a case for the innocent victims of the crime.

Perhaps it was this good nature that got him this little dumb assignment. It didn’t so much as bother him – he had taken shit from the firm ever since he joined, which felt like thousands of years ago. They only ever used him for their statistics, because most of the other lawyers were simple-minded, or were stupid enough to take celebrity profile cases, with the likes of graft and libel and corruption, that would bring in the money. The only problem was that they didn’t know how to properly defend a guilty person, and their defense would fall through in shambles quite easily, and they’d lose money, clients, as well as credibility. Crowley was their saving grace when he came from a more popular firm, but he was bull-headed in a sense that he only ever took the cases he deemed worth defending, which were few and far in between.

But now, this was something different. He took a picture of the storefront, then sent it to the anonymous number that he was given instruction to text. He knew it was a burner phone, so he had it saved as _Rich Pretentious Asshole _on his contacts so he’d memorize it easily.

He tapped out a quick text with his thumbs. “_This it?”_

The number replied in a matter of minutes. Crowley peered down his nose to the screen, his sunglasses slipping down a bit from its place on the bridge. “_Yes. Did you see the child?”_

“Child?” Crowley mumbled, scratching his hair in confusion. “There wasn’t… was there?” 

He frowned at the small pang of disappointment that flashed through his chest at the thought of the cute bookshop owner having a child. He admitted that when he went into the bookshop, he didn’t know what he was going to do. Perhaps just look around, ask a few questions, leave. That was, until the owner of said shop sidled out to help him out. Tufts of curly white hair on his head, rosy cheeks, a bright smile with brighter eyes. He was each and every way a cherub, and Crowley was still reeling in embarrassment at the fact that he had accidentally called him _‘Angel’ _out loud. 

“I can never go back,” he mumbled, leaning forward and pressing his forehead against the leather grip of his steering wheel. But he had to, and he was going to. He knew he had to swallow his stupid pride and go in again, check if there _was _a child, who he didn’t know was a pertinent factor in the case.

He frowned and drove forward again, craning his neck out the window to get a better view of the insides of the shop from outside, when he heard someone shouting. The moment he heard something bang against the hood of his car, he slammed his foot on the brakes.

An irate woman in a sundress, a jean jacket, and round glasses was in front of him, looking positively murderous. Crowley made sure his sunglasses stayed in place as he opened the front door.

“You could have _hit _me!” She started yelling as soon as he set foot on the pavement. An American accent. Crowley dismissed her with a flippant wave of his hand.

“Yes, yes, terribly sorry,” he mumbled, sounding not so sorry at all. He peered at the front of his car, squinting. “Did I hit anything?”

“Nearly me!”

“I meant something important,” he snapped. “Do you know how hard it is to come by parts of this particular model?”

The scowl on her face when he looked up was priceless, and Crowley mirrored it perfectly.

“Asshole!” She spat, and threw a balled up piece of paper against his chest before stomping away, a stack of fliers in hand and a messenger back swinging wildly on her hip. The paper ball bounced pathetically against his chest before dropping on the pavement.

Crowley looked around, not knowing what else to do. He caught sight of the bookshop owner, Ezra, peering at him curiously through the windows of the shop.

He smiled up at him a little shakily, hand half-raised in greeting. “What? It’s an old car.”

Ezra just pursed his lips in disappointment before disappearing into the shop. The blinds were pulled down a few moments later.

“Brilliant,” he grumbled to himself, rubbing a hand against his face. Crowley was about to leave when he accidentally kicked the crumpled ball of paper the woman had thrown at him. Curious, he picked it up and unfolded it, thinking it was going to show him some new deals at a Tesco nearby.

Instead, a picture of a smiling teenager with a small, black-and-white spotted dog faced him, with the words, “HAVE YOU SEEN ME AROUND?” in bold, dark letters above it, as well as his name, and the number to call.

Crowley had been a lawyer for ten years. He had encountered gruesome cases, had mostly read about them during case digests in law school or when researching for his firm’s defense. There were a choice few where he had defended young victims from the prosecuted for acts of unnatural cruelty – rape, harassment, abuse, et cetera. But there was a horrible numbness that had started to spread from his fingers to his feet, an odd ringing in his ears as well.

He knew this face. And he knew his family name. And, as he looked up at the shop front of A.Z. Fell & Co., he now had a terrible suspicion and a horrible realization as to why he was in this specific place, in this specific time.

Crowley groaned a little and looked up at the blue sky, addressing it to a god he never believed in in the very first place. “You know, what? I regret asking.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * I grew up in a house where both my mom and dad were bookworms. My dad loved all works by Sidney Sheldon, and my mom had all John Grisham's books. I read all of them when I was a pre-teen because I had nothing else to do, lol. 
> 
> *The Firm by John Grisham is a novel about a lawyer who joins a firm that's not all what it looks to be. Suspicious deaths have been linked to the firm and, well, that's foreshadowing. I'm gonna be using a lot of the books mentioned as either homages or foreshadowing. ;) 
> 
> *If you didn't get it, Crowley's firm is also a little thing I felt clever making. (H)ildebrand, (E)wing, & (L)ancaster. Our babyboy is from HEL 🤣


	4. Legi, Intellexi, et Condemnavi (I Read, Understood,  and Condemned)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kiss-and-tell.

* * *

Crowley had only a vague game plan to follow for the next few days, but this was a critical timeframe he knew he could not afford to mess up.

Time was of the essence, and right now he knew the odds were stacked against him. There were a few advantages, of course, being his total anonymity to the suspect apart from his occupation and the firm that he worked in. He was so caught up in the moment of being absolutely smitten with the innocent-looking Ezra that he had already spewed out information that could make this case fall apart.

If this Ezra Fell had really kidnapped a minor, the presence of an attorney, or any figure in relation to the law would be enough for him to change routines, possibly even skip town.

But he did none of those things; A.Z. Fell & Co. opened nearly every day in odd hours (he had asked around, and apparently that was a usual occurrence ever since ownership passed to Ezra a decade ago, so he chalked the detail up as irrelevant to the case), and sometimes the man would go out to buy food and groceries enough for two people. He didn’t want to assume anything, nor did he want to be an asshole about someone’s eating habits, so he decided to keep that small detail in his mental corkboard, but not string it up to any other details he had as of late.

Crowley had texted the _Rich Pretentious Asshole _client, asking for more details. After some vague messages that seemed to go in circles and never directly to the point, he got fed up and straight-up asked: “_Is this case concerning a missing teenager?”_

The reply was instantaneous, and no less curt. “_It is if you have the proof I’m asking for._” 

And so Crowley had decided to idle around the block for the following days. He had found a decent coffeehouse nearby with a delightfully sinful chocolate donut and a very strong, bitter cappuccino that lifted his spirits and fatigue away from his body. As he waited for the store to open, he wiled time away with researching the case on his laptop, precariously perched on his lap when he sat on the passenger seat, or with him reading the Grisham book that he had bought from the bookshop.

By the time the window blinds would be pulled up and the sign at the door would be flipped from ‘Closed’ to ‘Open’, Crowley would be at the door within the next ten minutes, chatting up Ezra. Every time the man would greet him warmly, his cheeks flaring up just a shade, and his smile bright enough to light up even the darkest corners of the shop.

Crowley felt like a complete asshole to flirt with him only to glean information from a possible suspect, especially because he knew the man was his type. But a job was a job, and he had to get that evidence one way or another.

But as days passed by, he found himself lingering in the shop more, his fingers dragging along the spines of old books with their titles faded to nothing. They would have been lost in time, if not for Ezra, who seemed to memorize each and every book inside the shop, from the covers, to the titles, to the authors, and its content. He pointed out a signed copy of _Howl and Other Poems _by an American poet, Allen Ginsberg, and he listened intently as the other man droned on and on about the Beat Generation. He listened actively, of course, but from time to time he zoned out, content on just watching the excitement and wonder flit through Ezra’s face, his animated gestures a dead giveaway on how much knowledge he had on the matter at hand.

Crowley was quite well-read too, and would make thoughtful inputs on this person or that novel. Whenever he saw Ezra taken aback, he didn’t find it offending, especially because he just looked so delightfully impressed and surprised. He’d discuss about Ezra some more modern pieces, however, having no patience for the likes of the Brontë sisters, but would gladly dissect books that were seen as controversial (Crowley had a _lot _to say about J.K. Rowling’s_The Casual Vacancy_, and Ezra seemed as eager to listen as he was to talk).

And, at some point in time, their little book club of sorts had transformed into a weird friendship that bloomed right before their eyes without them even watering it. _Organic, _was the word Crowley would describe it, as they started from standing and checking books, to discussing them, to discussing them over _tea, _and simply to just talk about anything _but_books over any beverage. Crowley had taken to coffee more, and Ezra seemed content with his mug of hot cocoa, asking about anything and everything under the sun.

Crowley could feel the warmth spreading through his veins even after just a few visits. Everytime he’d enter the bookshop, he felt safe, and cozy. Always, when he stepped out, he would receive a jarring text message, or a call, from his superiors at Hildebrand, Ewing, & Lancaster, and he’d be snapped back to reality with not much further ado about the matter. But he didn’t mind – he was thoroughly enjoying himself with Ezra’s company. Which was all the more dangerous for him, given the fact that he was there to try and weasel out information about him in the first place.

And at some point, the shopkeep had dropped a small little tidbit that he favored wines over good conversation, ones that went well into the evening, like those he sometimes had with Crowley. “You know, I have some bottles at the back I think you’d like to have,” he said coyly, batting his eyelashes.

Crowley already smitten, was easily mesmerized, leaning against the cashier desk with his chin propped up on his hand, grinning lazily. “Why don’t you invite me over then? For a nightcap.”

“Yes.” Then, “No.” The sweet smile that had been on Ezra’s lips suddenly froze and fell as he backpedaled on his offer. “No, no, I don’t think it would be wise.”

Crowley blinked at the sudden change of atmosphere and attitude from the other man. “Ezra, I’m not going to –”

“No, I just…” He gulped a little and smiled weakly. “Forgive me, dear. I have a guest, and I don’t think it’s fair for both of you to –”

“Of course,” Crowley mumbled, cogs already turning. That was it, the first admission that didn’t make sense. Ezra had said he wasn’t in contact much with his family, citing deep-rooted family issues that seemed to not have an ending in sight. He also said that he wasn’t terribly social aside from the customary “hi-hello”s shared between neighbors and grocers and other locals. A guest meant another person was in the building. He could try to figure out who it was, but something in his instinct made him think that who he suspected to be hiding was there.

Ezra seemed to panic, hands up. “Look, i-it’s not what it looks like –”

“Oh, no, don’t worry,” he mumbled absently, still wondering how he could get a glimpse of the teenager he was harboring.

The other man harrumphed and pulled him by the collars of his leather jacket. Before he knew it, he had pulled Crowley over the desk and kissed him, effectively shutting down the lawyer’s cognitive functions.

It was soft, and quiet, and sloppy, and _perfect. _Crowley kissed back and put a hand on the back of Ezra’s neck, cradling it and tilting him up as he deepened the kiss. They pulled away after some time, and the small sigh that escaped Ezra’s lips made Crowley’s heart lurch. 

There was no doubt in his mind that he was head over heels for this man.

“That was…” he mumbled, straightening on the other side of the cash register. He cleared his throat, fumbling and stumbling over words, mouth opening and closing wordlessly. “That’s.. I don't… What…?”

“That was nice,” Ezra whispered, smiling weakly.

Crowley winked at him and stole a quick kiss before he could react. “Yeah, that.”

Ezra laughed, and Crowley thought there was nothing quite like it.

* * *

The very next day, he dropped by with a case of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. He had researched for good wines, and had texted an old contact who had strings in wineries around London. Crowley didn’t know if it was going to be appreciated, but he knew he did good when Ezra clapped his hands and downright squealed in delight.

“I haven’t had one in years!” He admired, checking the alcohol content at the back. 

That was new information. “You’ve had them before?” Because Crowley’s eyebrows had shot up to his hairline when he heard how much a case would cost him. Good thing he had a ton of savings. He didn’t know if the cost was because it was aged since the 1920s, or because of the specific wine type. He had a suspicion it was both.

“Yes, these are my favorite! Oh, Crowley, we should break this open immediately!”

And they did. Ezra had disappeared into the backroom that he knew to lead to the kitchen out back, and Crowley stayed firm on his seat. Well, not quite firm; he did snoop around, trying to check if there were any trap doors or secret doors he could try and pry open. Ezra had closed the shop down in the middle of the day, only two hours after he had opened, just to drink with him.

When the man came back with two tall wine glasses and a corkscrew, Crowley knew he had to be careful. His head told him that there was a very real, very logical possibility that Ezra was lulling him into a false sense of security. It warred directly against the musings of his heart, which just wanted to have a nice afternoon involving the well-read man owning an old bookshop and bottles of wine.

“Crowley?”

He turned around as Ezra called out to him, placing the glasses down. Looking doubtful, and uncertain, and nervous. The suspicion bubbling under Crowley’s skin melted away as he asked, carefully, “Are you alright, dear?”

He smiled weakly and stepped forward to kiss him once more, dispelling the frown that had taken hold of his mouth. “Yes, I am.” His thumb traced gentle circles on Ezra’s cheek as it relaxed into a smile once more. “Everything’s alright.”

And they whiled away the hours, drinking and discussing and laughing and arguing about anything and everything and nothing in particular. They barely noticed that the sun had sank, Ezra turning the lights on in the shop without a second thought. Even drunk, Crowley was sober enough to keep his mouth shut about the ongoing case, and Ezra seemed too closed off to even say anything remotely alluding to this _guest _that had been hidden away upstairs.

As they drank the final drops of the wine, Ezra had only enough sense in him to call Crowley a taxi. The man was already planted face-first against a plush velvet throw pillow, mumbling and hissing at the unfairness of a situation he couldn’t really hear. There were a lot of swearwords mixed in-between, as well as questions that he, nor the shop, didn’t have the answer to.

It was quick work for Crowley to be placed into the backseat of the taxi with instructions to bring him back to his hotel. One last lingering goodbye and the cab was off. Ezra was humming to himself delightedly as he closed up shop, the delightful buzz of alcohol making his head feel light, emptying it of any worries that he usually had.

Adam finally resurfaced, hair tousled and eyes droopy from sleep. “Has he gone, Mr. Fell?”

“Mmyes, my dear boy,” he slurred, nodding. “Pip, pip, tickety boo. Go on, it’s past your bedtime.”

“I’m fifteen, Mr. Fell.”

“Still old enough for bedtime,” he tutted, swaying dangerously. Adam put his arms up to steady himself. “Whoa, there.”

“Mr. Fell, I think it’s better if you take the bed,” he said, leading him carefully up the stairs to the bedroom above the shop. “Careful, careful –”

“Nonsense, my dear boy,” Ezra tried to wave him and his hand away, despite his legs not functioning and coordinating properly, usually missing the steps. His sense of balance was _atrocious, _and he could barely see through the dark.

“I insist.”

And in a blur, Ezra was down on the familiar softness of his bed, not the stiffness of the couch that he had been sleeping in for a few weeks now. It didn’t take long for him for his fatigue and body malaise to catch up on him. He didn’t even feel Adam drape a blanket over his shoulders, and sleep overtook him without sparing another second.

* * *

The next day, Ezra Fell had a splitting headache. He waved Adam to open the shop and clean as he stumbled into the bathroom, driven by a tidal wave of nausea and a burning desire to get his hands on any remaining tablets of aspirin he had had stashed into his medicine cabinet on the off-chance he was going to be an absolute idiot and drink himself into a migraine at his age.

And as the teenager pulled the blinds up from the front windows of the shop, no one heard the soft shutter of a camera from a black Bentley parked in a corner. Crowley, with an equally splitting headache and bloodshot eyes hidden poorly behind his sunglasses, was still shocked, finger on the shutter of the camera as he saw the unmistakable face of Adam Young. He didn’t even notice that he had spilled his coffee on his leather seat, too focused on the picture that was on the display screen.

“_Shit,_” he whispered, his stomach clenching uncomfortably.

His phone was in his hand, but he felt his fingers numbing, not wanting to do what he knew he had to. After five minutes of deliberation and hesitation, he relented, tapping on the _Rich Pretentious Asshole _contact. His thumb still hovered over the name for a half-minute before he pressed the call button.

He knew he was terribly hungover, but what he wouldn’t give for ten jäger bombs right now…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Allen Ginsberg is one of the main figureheads from the Beat Generation, something I've come to reference a few chapters beforehand. Howl is one of, if not /the/ most-known work that he made, regarding a very imaginative and distorted vision of reality. I love it to bits and listen to Ginsberg reading it himself to a live audience on Spotify. 
> 
> You can listen to it yourself here: https://open.spotify.com/track/2sSHtceOBuK9y63ruNK9r0?si=Vg1L-QSVT7K-MZfKfb5XHw  
Or buy the copy from The Book Depository: https://www.bookdepository.com/Howl-and-Other-Poems/9780872860179 (free shipping worldwide ;) I gotchu)
> 
> *If you were a fan of JK Rowling, especially before 2012, then you might have heard of her controversial book "The Casual Vacancy". Her first venture into adult-themed novels, it was highly-debated and, as far as I remembered, got her banned from the town that she was basing off of for the story? (Not sure if that last part is real, or not, I just remember reading about it after it was published). I've read the book and loved it, especially because of the nature of the story as well as the jarring ending (legitimately made me cry). Without spoiling anything, I'll tell you that this book involves secrecy, revelations, and child endangerment and abuse, which, judging by this story, kind of tied-in at the theme hip.
> 
> *At some point, you really just get a feel of my tastes in books. If it's deemed controversial, or has a controversial topic, or the writer is controversial, give it to me and I'm going to freaking eat it up. No, seriously.


	5. In Flagrante Delicto (While The Crime Is Blazing)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel moves his pieces into position.

* * *

In another part of the city, Anathema Device was already at her wit’s end.

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no…” she repeated to herself, almost like a mantra, as she paced from one end of her rented room to another. Her cellphone lay on the dinner table, ringing incessantly, each trill mocking her. Had it been a number she didn’t know, she’d have braved answering it.

The caller ID displayed the name _Louie Schiffre, _and looking at it, imagining the man who was on the other side, waiting for her to pick up the call, made her shiver uncontrollably.

The ringing finally stopped, and that was the only time Anathema exhaled a breath that she didn’t know she had been holding for a while. Sinking into the bed, she buried her face on her hands for a moment, before looking up at the makeshift corkboard she had hung on the wall.

A picture of Adam was in the middle, and another one with her and another boy his age as they hugged one another. Anathema smiled at the boys’ wide grins and their laughs frozen in time, especially Warlock’s. Both boys were special to her, and even though her official capacity to them both was as a tutor for English literature, they have grown to be something more like wards. And she knew, and supported, more than anyone, the relationship between the two that blossomed after spending so much time together inside and outside her tutelage.

She knew that she was doing so utterly stupid, leaving her job and driving around like a headless chicken, clucking on and on, and passing flyers to anyone who would give a damn or feel enough pity to at least take one from her hands, but it was the only thing she could do. Anathema had a bundle of nervous energy she couldn’t seem to work off, and it was either doing everything and being a mess at any given point of the day, or seemingly exploding and breaking down from the mental stress.

Warlock had sent a text message the night before. It was him asking if she was doing alright. Anathema admitted that she cried when she read his concern over her well-being.

“_I don’t want you getting hurt. Please stay safe.” _

If it wasn’t for her, her stubbornness, her nosiness, the boys’ relationship wouldn’t have been found out. They wouldn’t have been outed to both of their families accidentally. Warlock was a bit luckier, with understanding American parents that were at least open-minded enough to listen to his side of the story. Adam’s was another case, and Anathema was too riddled by guilt and grief that she’d willingly follow the proverbial bread crumb trail Adam was leaving so she could set things right.

But now, Mr. Schiffre had probably taken due notice of her absences. Did he know? Is she being followed? Is she being targeted? If so, does that mean she was close?

“I can’t, I can’t do this,” Anathema mumbled, wringing her hands nervously to stop them from instinctively pulling at her hair. Her eyes landed on the map of the town, where she had pin-pointed a corner of the street with a weird, barely-open bookshop at the end of it.

A bookworm herself, she had tried to get in to distract herself enough for a breather, but a man had, quite rudely, pushed her out again and flip the sign from ‘Open’ to ‘Closed’ right in her face. She could only vaguely see the _real _shopkeeper’s face, and was only a little vindicated when he looked quite cross with the suited man.

On another day, she had been distributing flyers at a closer spot, and was nearly hit by a shiny Bentley that she hadn’t seen around anywhere. The driver, a red-haired man who looked like he just got back from an underground rave, had the _audacity _to tell her that she wasn’t important enough to be cared about if she was hit or not. The absolute nerve!

But today was one of her bad days. She knew that _he _knew, and she knew her already-too-small window of opportunity had shrunk considerably.

Without thinking, her hands had started to shuffle a deck of cards. It was worn at the edges, but it still retained some semblance of the minimalistic, gold design. Her tarot deck had been neglected for some time, and she wanted nothing else to get a personal reading for a long time. Her passion for the occult and the arcane were shoved to the side as she took up her tutoring job to children from very high-profile families. But she never could part with her first and only deck. Some would comment on its sorry state, compelling her to buy a new one. She hadn’t had the heart to do so, as it was the only deck whose art actually spoke to her on a very real level.

Anathema breathed in, pacing herself as her fingers caught on the motion of re-shuffling the cards into the deck. Once she felt the moment was right, she stopped and picked three cards at random. A simple, three-card reading would do.

She spread the three cards out, then flipped them upright one-by-one. The first card was for a reflection on what she was thinking at the moment. A reversed Seven of Pentacles stared right back at her, and she internally grimaced. _Work without results. Distractions. Lack of reward. _That was what that card symbolized.

“Seems about right,” she mumbled to herself.

The second card was flipped, as well, which was supposed to reflect her feelings. It was another reversed card, now the Four of Swords. “Restlessness, burnout, stress.” Anathema scoffed at the accuracy of it all.

Her fingers finally turned the third and last card face-up. The ‘doing’ card, which she always interpreted as something she should accomplish within the day. It was an upright placement of The Star. Anathema’s face lit up, as the card meant hope, and faith, and rejuvenation.

She looked down at her spread, then at the map and corkboard on the wall. The search for Adam had been a long and fruitless one, and she had been sneaking around under Mr. Schiffre’s nose to get them to safety. But it seemed her luck was running out: the hellhound was at her door, and she was stuck between a rock and a very hard place.

Anathema remembered her mother, an occultist herself, and how she’d set down her cards for a daily reading when faced with a problem, then leave the house for hours at a time. She had thought for majority of her life that her mother was running away from her problems. She understood now that it was a form of escapism for self-preservation, because as of this moment her thoughts were running a mile a minute, in circles, down and up the circles of Hell.

She needed to run. She needed to escape. She needed some peace of mind.

Wordlessly, she got her messenger bag and slung it on her shoulder before leaving, heading to A.Z. Fell & Co.

* * *

Gabriel, in the meantime, was on a Skype call.

“Excellent,” he praised, in between mouthfuls of a tapioca pudding. He was currently in a luxurious hotel restaurant, high up in the London skyline, overlooking the busy streets below. He didn’t want to openly verbalize it, but he preferred high vantage points such as these. It made everyone small and, therefore, irrelevant in comparison to his ‘here and now’. It inflated his sense of self to no end.

“Beg your pardon?” The other person on the line said, a tinge of Scottish accent slipping out.

“I meant your work, Attorney Crowley, truly excellent,” the man hummed, dabbing on the corners of his mouth with an expensive-looking gray napkin. His work tablet was set up against a glass vase to face him. Crowley on the screen was trying to soften his scowl, which just made him look moderately disgruntled. “It took some time, but there’s undisputable evidence now.”

“Mnh, yes, well…” the man mumbled, crossing his arms across his chest and pouting a little. Gabriel thought him as childish, but didn’t want to comment so. He was one of the best lawyers at Hildebrand, Ewing, & Lancaster, after all, and Gabriel had the good fortune of having him assigned to his case. He had a reputation of being soft and sensitive when it came to victimized kids, and this was just the perfect set-up.

  
“I have to ask, what can we actually do?” he asked, smiling politely.

Crowley furrowed his brows, scratching at his head absently. “Regarding the facts of the case, Adam Young is a fugitive, wanted by authorities and seemingly at large. If he’s here, then there might be probable cause that would suggest Ez—I mean, Mr. Fell, was harboring him from the public eye.”

Gabriel hummed thoughtfully. “Harboring a fugitive?”

The man on the other line nodded thoughtfully. “The term ‘_accessory to the crime_’ would be more fitting."

“And... how long would this potentially put him behind bars?”

The attorney visibly bristled in anger. His shoulders tensed and drew in closer to his body. Gabriel took notice, of course, but didn't want to ask. It was irrelevant for him to, anyway. “Years and years, if convicted."

“Excellent!” Gabriel repeated, sounding far too happy at this turn of events. He clapped his hands together once and raised his glass of wine to his lips. “I must celebrate. Ah, Attorney, I’ll have to ask you to do something for me...”

Crowley threw his head back with a sudden, frustrated groan. “Oh, for the love of God, no more spying.”

“No, no, we’re done with that. I would like to ask you to write a letter to Mr. Fell.”

Even behind the dark sunglasses, Gabriel saw the look of incredulity on Crowley’s face, the pieces of the puzzle falling into place faster than he could even say '_jigsaw'_. “You want me to write a demand letter?”

“Yes, very sharp of you,” he hummed, drumming his fingers on the table thoughtfully as he plotted his course of action. “A demand letter saying that he has to abide by my terms, of which I have verbally discussed with him. Or else.”

“_In terrorem._” Crowley snorted, shaking his head in disbelief at the sheer audacity of the situation he found himself in. “And I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me anything about these terms you speak of?”

“No, I believe that is a private matter.”

“Mr. Aingeal, I will have to ask for it nonetheless,” Crowley grumbled, leaning forward and closer to the camera. “A demand letter is a legal threat, of course, but if this is taken to court, that could be seen as… well, suspicious.”

“I assure you, Attorney, it won’t come to that.” Gabriel waved his hand in the air, dismissing his worries. “It’s highly likely that Mr. Fell will fall in line soon after he reads the demand letter.”

“And how are you so sure?”

“Well, it’s either that or risk his reputation and business crumbling into nothing when word gets out that he’s obstructing justice by hiding young Adam from authorities. And let's be honest, here -- that bookshop of his doesn't even have a client base to begin with. The only thing keeping it afloat is the man's savings.”

“Right.” The red-haired man pursed his lips, not totally sold on the idea but he accepted it all the same, even though it looked like it left a bitter taste on the tip of his tongue. “And what of him?”

“Pardon?”

“What about Adam Young?” He pressed. “Surely you’re not…”

Gabriel was at a loss for words at what the other man was supposed to be asking, or was suggesting. The silence, however, was telling to Crowley.

“No,” he said, the worry on his face transforming into horror, with a tinge of disgust. “No, you can’t possibly--?”

Gabriel sighed, acquiescing to reveal his thoughts on the matter. “Adam Young’s existence in this scenario is irrelevant.”

“Irrelevant?!” Crowley spat, indignity making him tense up once more. “You’re using the boy just to get to Mr. Fell!”

“And what’s it to you?”

“He’s a _kid! _A highly volatile minor!”

“Who just so happened to be in the right place at the right time for a case such as mine,” Gabriel said coolly, eyes narrowing. “I expect you to go through with this, Attorney. Your boss has spoken highly of you to me. It would pain me to report back to him about your… behavior.”

The scowl on his face was wiped almost instantly. “Boss? You mean Attorney Beelzebub?”

“No.” Gabriel grinned widely. “My dear old friend Mr. Schiffre.”

There was no sound from the other man, but he could see the faintest motion of his Adam’s apple bob in his throat awkwardly.

“You may write it with my name,” Gabriel said, taking another spoonful of pudding. “So that dear Mr. Fell will know who exactly he’s dealing with. Call me if you need anything else. Payment will be sent shortly.”

He ended the call before Crowley could say anything else. Gabriel just leaned back, smiling as he finished his dessert bowl.

“_Check_, Aziraphale,” he said to the air, smiling at the thought of his cousin’s face stricken with fear.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Louie Schiffre -> Lou Schiffre -> Lucifer. Yeah. I did that. Lmao
> 
> * It's best for you to buy a tarot deck which art actually speaks to you or you like best. A tarot deck is a deeply personal thing, and it affects your relationship with the cards that you take.
> 
> * A simple three-card layout reading is the basic set-up. I am no occultist but I downloaded an app for tarot card readings called "Labyrinthos", which also gives you the ability to learn about tarot cards and their meanings. Here are Anathema's cards and their meanings according to the app:
> 
> -> VII of Pentacles – Reversed: Work without results, distractions, lack of rewards. “Though you have definitely been putting in much work, you find yourself questioning whether the rewards that you get from it are enough to justify your time spent. What you’ve planted perhaps has not taken root, and you find yourself frustrated, and looking for other opportunities.”
> 
> ->IV of Swords – Reversed: restlessness, burnout, stress. “All of life’s struggles have been hard on you, and yet you continue to push forwards without giving your body and spirit time to rest and recover from the challenges. Not allowing life to defeat you in important, but it is also important to take a moment of peace, so you can move with more energy for the days to come.”
> 
> ->The Star: hope, faith, rejuvenation. “After the collapse of the tower, the star suggests the possibility for rebirth, rejuvenation, and overall – hope. It is a phase in which one has trust and faith in oneself and in the universe around them.” 
> 
> * An accessory to the crime is someone who assists in the crime without doing, witnessing, or participating in the crime itself; common cases that can make one as an accessory to the crime is offering a false alibi, helping to get rid of evidence of the crime, or harboring a suspect from authorities. Harboring a suspect could also be seen as an obstruction of justice.
> 
> * A demand letter is a form of legal threat, wherein a party can demand something from another party (actions, remunerations, etc.) with the threat of them pursuing legal action if these demands are not met. "In terrorem" -> Latin for "into fear", a term used to describe legal threats that would comply parties to follow through as they are faced with the risk of prosecution.
> 
> * Gabriel's and Ezra's family name is "Aingeal", which is the Scottish Gaelic word for 'angel'. I initially wanted it to be Latin for 'of God', but that is just 'Dei' or 'Deo'. Aingeal sounds much nicer in my opinion.

**Author's Note:**

> Leave kudos and comments of your thoughts and theories on how this is going to go <3


End file.
